Patricia Washington sees a simple calculus: If you take someone’s life, you better be prepared to lose your own.

The death penalty is just, she believes — an unsurprising view in this rural town a short drive from the state prison that houses death row. Executions have come up a lot lately in conversations at Washington’s work, a tiny eatery tucked into an Exxon service station off Highway 65.

Starting the day after Easter, the state is scheduled to execute eight men in 11 days, and people in Gould and across Arkansas are wondering how so many executions will affect prison staffers and color perceptions of this Bible Belt state. Two men will die each day on April 17, 20, 24 and 27.

No state has executed this many people in such a short span since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. The closest was Texas, which executed eight men in both May and June of 1997, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.